[Composite Portrait of Cherokee and Chickasaw Students at Vanderbilt, 1885-1899]

Carla Beals
Oklahoma Historical Society Photograph Collection
Oklahoma Historical Society and the Gateway to Oklahoma History
Collection of Kathryn Parks Forbes
Tennessee State Library and Archives
Vanderbilt University Photographic Archives

This composite portrait of Vanderbilt’s first indigenous students is inspired by composites of graduating classes that frequently ran in nineteenth-century Vanderbilt yearbooks.  Students would sit for individual portraits at photo studios in downtown Nashville such as Calvert Brothers and Thuss, and the studios would create poster-size group pictures.  The images for this composite backdrop come from yearbook images as well as numerous other photographs from archival and family collections.